Video Games World Domination

In BusinessWeek's article The Gaming Stories of 2007, the number one is “2007 Game Sales to Shatter All Records.” This really is amazing: “Through November, the U.S. game industry is up a whopping 50 percent to $13.12 billion. Considering that December sales can often wind up accounting for as much as 25 to 30 percent of annual sales, the industry will easily break all previous records in 2007, likely coming in around $18 billion or more…Consider this: According to the Motion Picture Association (MPA), in 2006 all-media sales (movies, home video/DVDs, and television) in the U.S. totaled $24.3 billion. Video games are rising, and they're rising fast. Games are no longer in the shadow of Hollywood. In some sense, Hollywood and the games industry look at one another as equals – there's lots of collaboration and that's only going to continue.”

In an article in the Wall Street Journal, editor Stephen Moore describes his pain in seeing his sons “muscles began to atrophy right before our very eyes,” when last summer his sons started spending virtually every unsupervised hour camped out in front of the computer screen engaged in multiplayer role games. “I'm not one to blame every human frailty on some faddish psychiatric disorder. But I'm persuaded that computer games are the new crack cocaine. The testimonials from parents of online gamers are horrific: kids not taking showers, not eating or sleeping, falling behind in school.”

For some reason I just grew out of video games when I graduated from High School. When I went to college my video games stayed home. Possibly because the Playstation 2, Game Cube and Xbox were too expensive for me to buy at the time. Now whenever I play any game with others I’m so lost that I get killed almost instantly making me loose interest just as instantly.

If my kids ever become addicted to video games I’m going to take the TV into the back yard and smash it. I don’t have any tolerance for my kids squandering their childhood. One book that tries to fight against this growing “playstation culture” called The Dangerous Book for Boys. Within the first week of its US publication on May 1, 2007, it reached number two on the Amazon.com bestselling book lists, being outsold only by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It covers around eighty topics, including how to build a catapult, go-karts, and bows and arrows and also included are famous quotes, stories, battles, and phrases that "every boy should know."

I also think that part of the blame for kids spending too much time with video games is that their parents are too worried about their kids getting hurt. Living in this digital age, parents hear stories about molesters and kidnappings much more frequently from all over the world than parents of the past did. I’m sure wickedness is more prevalent today than back then, but picking your kid up from school just to save them from walking home alone and then setting them down in front of the TV and inviting the world into your living room is no safer.

Zax Best of 2007

Scariest moment: Almost drowning while swimming in the ocean in Ixtapa, Mexico.

Crappiest moment: Standing in the freezing cold for 45 minuets as goalie on an intramural soccer team on the game that decided weather or not we advance in the tournament and letting 5 goals get scored and therefore losing the game.

Successful moment: Winning 1^st place and $100 in an elevator pitch competition and then winning 1^st place and another $100 at a business case competition at college.

Crappiest class: Geology and Geology Lab.

Best Vacation: Orlando FL.

Number of jobs held in 2007: 4 – Internship in Mexico (4 months), Construction (1 month), Dish Network Telemarketer (2 days), Melaleuca Spanish Phone Rep (2 months).

Biggest waste of time: Watching all 3 seasons of Lost

Best Day: May 25^th, I got married

Best Movies I watched: Half Nelson, Hot Fuzz, Sicko, Transformers, Vacancy,

Worst Movies: Broken Flowers, Next, Ghost Rider, Fantastic Four: Rise of Silver Surfer (cant think of any more right now)

Best CDs of 2007: Against Me!: New Wave, Alkaline Trio: Remains, Bomb the Music Industry: Get Warmer, Chuck Regan: Feast or Famine, Tiger Army: Music From Regions Beyond, Tim Armstrong: A poet’s life

Best book I read: The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki